Best Laid Plans
by crystal.paines
Summary: It was easy, comfortable. I didn't want to ruin a friendship just because of a crush. Even if it was three years. But life has a way of not respecting your plans. QuilClaire


Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Author's Note: To be clear, Claire does not know about the imprint. I just don't think it makes sense…she can find out later. But why would you want to dump all that destiny and predetermination and responsibility on a person at the very beginning of a relationship?

At least that's my take. Feel free to comment if you disagree.

* * *

In the middle of _She's the Man_, I turned the television off. I spent the whole last season of _Grey's Anatomy_ praying for George and Izzy and the one time my older sister made me watch Gossip Girl, I thought Vanessa and Dan would have been the best couple on the Upper East Side.

My best friend and I didn't watch too many chick flicks, even though I'm sure if I asked he would have sat down uncomplainingly and watched until the credits rolled. Ever since I could remember, he had always been there to hold my hand through every awkward moment and watch every stupid second of every stupid third grade play. Quil Ateara was the only permanent fixture in my life. If he needed me half as much as I needed him, we would make one sad dependent pair.

The only problem?

I'd been half in love with him longer than I could remember.

Hence the rooting for George and Izzy, the cheering for Vanessa and Dan and the inability to watch someone actually start a relationship with their best friend.

I'd figured it out the Thanksgiving after I turned fifteen. The whole pack had been over at Aunt Em's and, as usual, I'd snuck out my window after Mom had brought the pies out. Aunt Em made a mean pumpkin pie and, besides, the company was better.

Quil had been late, out running patrol. In the middle of watching a movie, he burst through the door, bringing with him a little bit of early snow. I'd been in his arms before I'd even processed leaving the sofa, just like I always was.

For some reason, the past thousand embraces hadn't felt like this.

The lack of space on the sofa, with three werewolves refusing to share the space they felt entitled to, and I'd ended up curled in his lap, my head leaning against his shoulder, his arms draped loosely around my waist.

It had been three years, and I'd been walking around in various states of unrequited love with my best friend, too afraid to admit I was too afraid to do anything about it. Life remained routine, as it so easily does, a cycle of school, home, Aunt Emily's and Quil's apartment, punctuated by a lot of rain. I'd even convinced myself that I was happy with routine, happier with what was predictable and easy than the risk I'd run breaking out of it.

Too bad life never respects the plans you set.

* * *

I heard the voices before I saw the visitors at Uncle Sam's. New people were a rarity around La Push, but I had an armful of history books that needed to be put on a flat surface soon, so I pushed open the door anyway. Most of my time was spent here since I was old enough to tell my parents that really, I'd rather spend time with the pack. Shy tendencies aside, by the age of eight I was so accustomed to the large numbers of overly-heated men that filled Aunt Emily's house, as well as their fluffy alter-egos, that they never bothered me. History books, I reasoned, could go in my room. Easy enough to slip out the back door for a run of the two-legged variety.

Really, around the Uley household, I'm quite a boring commodity. But that suited me just fine.

Unfortunately for me, it became clear from the moment I stepped into the house that sneaking out the back door wasn't in the cards for me. Embry was grinning ear-to-ear in the living room when I walked in. Typical Embry, he didn't even reach to help as I dropped my load on the other end of the couch.

"Hey Claire! Jake's back!"

A raised eyebrow was my only visual concession to this surprising news. Jacob Black was practically a legend around this house, ever since he'd broken off and left with the Clearwaters fifteen years ago. Though I had seen Seth every year or so, and Leah a few times, Jake had somehow never made it back up to Washington. Apparently too busy doting on his imprint.

"Quil's in the kitchen." Embry, while not exactly the brightest in the bunch, didn't need me to ask, not after all this time. One of us was always asking for the other, always had been. Contrary to rumor, we were still just friends. Well, I conceded, as much as a Beemer is 'just a car'.

"Thanks Em."

He hated when I called him that. Then again, ever since I'd found his Playboy stash at his and Quil's apartment a few months ago, he'd been trying to stay on my good side.

I walked past him into the kitchen, slow steps taking me along the familiar route. From the rising temperature, it was a safe bet that everyone had, as usual, congregated in the kitchen.

I wasn't wrong. Four or five heads towered above mine among the linoleum and cabinetry of Aunt Em's huge kitchen. I could barely see her, holding Henry on one hip. Lucy, the other twin, must still have been down for her nap.

In the doorway, I stopped. Growing up surrounded by the pack, I had developed a relatively reliable awareness of things 'other'. A sixth sense, if you want to be all Hollywood about it.

Whatever it was, it was going off like crazy, sending goosebumps up my arms, even in the heat of the kitchen.

Quil was easy to find, even in this mess of look-a-like men. Besides the familiar stance, the hair that curled at the base of his neck, I recognized the shirt he was wearing as one I had bought him, last time we had gone up to Port Angeles. The familiar smile lit up his face when he saw me coming, and one arm extended for me to easily slip under, as I had habitually for years. We were familiar. We were easy.

From my newfound position under his arm, it was easy to identify what was making me edgy. Standing under Jake's arm, much as I was tucked against Quil, was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. There was something inhuman about her long curling copper hair, her warm brown eyes, her slender body that curved in all the right places. It was hard not to feel jealous.

Then again, I was only human and she, I could tell from a quick glance, was most emphatically not.

_Cullen_. She must have been, despite the fact that I had no way of recognizing one. There hadn't been leeches in La Push since Jacob Black left with the Cullens fifteen years ago. Growing up with the pack, I wasn't exactly prone to labels, but the thought of something that craved the very thing keeping me alive? Forgive me for being a little jittery.

The fact that I wanted her to like me already probably said terrible things about my sense of self-preservation.

"…thinking we might stay here for a while." Even her voice was sweeter than human, melodic in the laughter that floated up with her gaze at Jake's face.

Around my high school, we would identify the adoring look on his face being totally whipped.

"Grandma and Grandpa –well Grandpa really- thought the time was right to go back to England. He got offered a job in at the University of London hospital." The names she dropped seem to mean something to the men gathered around her, a few of whom had nodded hello to me. "Aunt Rose and Uncle Em are on yet another honeymoon, and Aunt Alice and Uncle Jazz went to visit friends- Peter and Charlotte I think." She laughed, elbowing Jake in the side. "I think we were giving her headaches."

He just smiled and kissed her forehead. If I wasn't so used to Uncle Sam and Aunt Emily, Jared and Kim, Paul and Rachel…it would have been sickening. Then again, along with the excess hair, werewolves tended to bring in sickeningly sweet romance.

"What about Bella?" Uncle Sam held out his arms to take Henry from Aunt Emily, not taking his eyes off the inhumanely beautiful girl standing in the middle of his kitchen.

The girl rolled her eyes. The gesture made her look, almost for an instant, like a normal teenager, much like some of my friends. Except, I noted as the sun peered through the window for a second, my friends didn't shimmer in the sun.

"Mom wanted to see Europe. Since this one," she elbowed Jake in the side with a smile, "would tip a gondola, we thought it would be a good idea to part ways for a year or two. Besides," her smile turned into a bit of a smirk, "I thought they could use their privacy."

Obviously the meaning of this was not lost on the crowd. I could feel Quil laughing, his chest vibrating under my cheek.

"Besides, I wanted to meet the pack." She smiled, the full power of her charm becoming evident. Any uncertainty I had felt around this girl vanished in the face of that genuine expression. "And Jake hasn't been back in ages. My fault I guess. Speaking of which, who's this?"

And then she was looking straight at me. In the face of that intense brown gaze, I wanted to shrink and vanish into the floor. It was suddenly at the forefront of my mind that I hadn't really spent more than two minutes on my make-up this morning and my hair was hanging limply over my shoulders. My jeans and shirt hung loosely, having no curves to cling to whatsoever, and from the looks of what she was wearing, American Eagle wasn't exactly her store of choice.

"This," Quil's proud voice echoed from somewhere above my head. "Is Claire."

"Damn." Jacob Black grinned at me. "You grew. Last time I saw you, you were this big." The hand gesture he was making indicated that I'd been about the size of a puppy. Hopefully an exaggeration.

"Oh hush." The girl elbowed him in the side again. As if I need another sign she wasn't quite human; last time I'd tried to touch Quil with any kind of force, I'd been the one nursing bruises. She held out her hand, just as smooth, perfect and slightly shimmery as the rest of her. "I'm Nessie. Renesmee Cullen."

"Claire." I took her hand and let her shake it once before reclaiming it. It wasn't the unusual heat; that was a norm. And it wasn't her handshake, not too tight, not limp and sweaty. There was still something about her that had my muscles tensing.

As I pulled my hand away from hers, there was a flash in my mind, of night skies and cool Arctic breezes. Without thinking, I snatched my hand away.

"Oops." She giggled a little. "Sorry 'bout that. Not used to the heat."

That was her?

"Where are you all living now?" Sam asked.

"Fairbanks." The conversation moved again, to places and people I didn't recognize.

The sound of my name called my concentration back from the French verbs I had a test about on Friday. Quil had, as always, anticipated my discomfort around the newcomesr. I smiled politely in response to Ness' expression of desire to spend some time together later, and let him lead me out of the kitchen by the hand. We passed Embry, now watching a football game, and I followed him out the door.

Kim's youngest was playing in the front yard with Rachel and Paul's second child, evidently taking on the role of babysitter that had been mine for a number of years. I should have been rushing to keep up with Quil, but he slowed his steps so that my two steps to match each of his were normally paced.

When I'd been little, he'd given me piggy back rides, my hands either scrambling for purchase on the smooth planes of his bare back or winding themselves through his thick fur. It had been a couple years, now, since we had come to an unspoken agreement that I was too old for piggy back rides.

"What is Nessie?" I asked once we were clear of the house.

Around any other group of people, the question might have been considered rude. Luckily for me, I never had to clarify what I meant to Quil. He just knew.

"Bella and Edward Cullen's daughter." His fingers were still laced through mine as we walked along the winding dirt road leading up to the Uley house. "Half vampire. Half human."

"Huh." It was hard to stand out in the world I had always known, one populated by shifting shapes, living legends and things that literally did go bump in the night. Apparently, it could always get worse.

"Yeah. I don't think it was intentional."

I would have laughed, if my mind hadn't been busy trying to figure out the logistics of that. Thanks to many girly movie nights, surrounding couples and long, uncomfortable talks with Aunt Emily, I had the sex thing pretty much figured out. Too bad I hadn't really gotten a hands on demonstration as of yet. But a human and a bloodsucker?

Sounded complicated.

"How long are they back?"

Quil shrugged, the muscles of his back flexing and shifting under his thin shirt.

Our silences were comfortable, as predictable and reliable as our friendship. Eventually, one of us would take the conversation in a new direction, shift the dynamic. But for a moment, we could both be content to let things be.

"Jake imprinted on Renesmee the day she was born."

Usually I could read Quil like an open book with extra-large print and colorful diagrams. This was not one of those times.

"Hmm?" I waited.

"Her mom freaked."

I laughed lightly. "Can't blame her. My mom wasn't exactly happy with the idea of me hanging around the pack all the time." She had tried on and off to get me to hang out with more people my own age for the last sixteen years. It hadn't ever really worked. As long as I could remember, I had felt more comfortable hanging out with the pack than with my so-called 'peers'. Aunt Emily said it was because I was too mature for my age. My mom just blamed Quil. Not that I really cared.

Quil grinned, the smile that had always made my heart stop pounding and my breath catch in my throat. Too bad it had exactly the same effect on every other member of the female population. "She liked me."

My lips curved up in a smile. Of course she did. Who wouldn't love Quil?

When we walked back down the road, still hand-in-hand, the sun had set enough that I had pulled myself closer to Quil's warm body.

Or maybe, I was just looking for an excuse.

* * *

Nessie and Jake were sitting on the porch. Or, really if you want to get technical about it, Jake was sitting on the porch and Nessie was sitting on Jake. It was a good thing for their sakes that the kids had wandered inside. There's a lot of PDA around the Uley household, but this was a little more intense than even I was used to.

My cheeks flushed and I drew even closer to Quil. He just laughed and pulled me tighter against his side, his hand drifting up and down my arm. Sometimes, he knew me a little too well. But I wouldn't complain.

We had barely stepped off the road when Nessie pulled away from Jake. I barely caught him muttering something about later as we stepped closer and she climbed off his lap, pulling him to his feet. She just laughed, tipping her head back, as the rare sunlight that seemingly showed up just for her cast a shimmer over her inhumanely perfect features.

"Hey Claire." I couldn't help smiling back at her, even if what I wanted to do was bury my face in Quil's side. "Do you have a beach around here? I haven't been to the beach since Aunt Alice took me to France for the weekend."

I guess when you don't sleep, jet lag isn't a problem.

"Yeah, down the road. But you can't swim yet." I realized as soon as the words were out of my mouth that they probably didn't apply to her. "Or at least, I can't."

She laughed. "I don't want to. Don't worry. But I'd love to see the beach."

Quil was pulling away from me slowly. He was always reluctant to let me go. Usually I had to be the one pulling away from him, but this time I was slow to release my grip on him. I knew Uncle Sam trusted her, that the pack trusted the Cullens, but I'd grown up on stories of bloodsuckers.

"Sure." Slowly, I unwrapped myself from Quil, feeling a chill as the wind touched my overheated body.

Jake was walking towards Quil now, a smile on his handsome face. It was an expression that changed perceptibly as he leaned down to give Nessie a lingering kiss. My cheeks turned red again.

"I won't," he promised her, laughing. I looked between the two of them, apparently missing something.

"Which way?" Nessie paused at the road, looking at me expectantly. I pointed and we started walking.

Keeping up a conversation, especially with someone I don't know, isn't exactly my greatest talent. Fortunately for both of us, Nessie seemed to have a knack for it. Somehow, by the time we'd walked to the beach, I had told her more than I realized, and learned a lot about her.

"We wanted our privacy too," she said. Shoes thrown aside, she walked out into the rocky sand that made up the beach. "And Dad needed a break from Jake." The look she cast over her shoulder invited me into the joke they had all been sharing in the kitchen. "You think what happens with the whole pack knowing, try having your dad know."

What was she…

Oh.

I blushed again. "Me and Quil…it's not like that." She was only the latest person in a long string to make that assumption. I was enough of a realist to understand that Hollywood got more than a few things wrong. Lately, it seemed like I was the only one.

"I just assumed…" She laughed. "Sorry. I bet you get that all the time. And I guess it was so easy for me and Jake, I just thought it was like that for everyone."

"What do you mean?" I sat down on one of the larger rocks, crossing my arms around my knees.

The cool breeze that seemed to find every gap in my clothing didn't seem to bother her. "I guess I was never really a kid. I mean, Jake told me when I was what…six years old? Given, I looked like I was fifteen and thought…well, not like your average six year old." She laughed, shaking her head affectionately, probably at memories. Or maybe just about Jake. "Anyway, we just kind of started dating, right before I started real high school. I guess he didn't want the other boys to have any chance. I moved in with him, like, six months ago."

It should have surprised me. Listening to Nessie talk, though, all I felt was jealousy. Her life seemed so easy, every piece falling neatly into place, every detail smoothing itself out to her convenience. It may have been inhuman, but that didn't mean it was fair.

"I thought it might happen." I didn't like to talk about it much. It hadn't exactly ended well. "Two years ago. But when I thought about it…the age difference just got too hard. It just kind of seemed like what we should do, though, you know? And he was so careful and so considerate…more like a big brother than a boyfriend."

She rolled her eyes. "Tell me about it. I had to start everything with Jake. My dad just made it worse."

She thought her dad was bad. Try having the entire population of La Push staring at you when you try to hold hands and share an ice cream cone, even when you're not dating. Try fearing that all the kids at school say you must be sleeping with him because why else would he stay and knowing that they say it anyway. Even worse was what they would say about him.

"I've been keeping secrets from my mom forever." When in doubt, I reasoned, always better to simply change the subject. "The pack, obviously." I played with the fraying hem of my jeans, barely glancing out of the corner of my eye at Nessie. "Quil and I having lunch together every day. It's the dumbest secret ever. Then the one time…" I laughed caught up in the memory. "Freshman year I wanted to get drunk more than anything, because everyone was doing it. Quil finally gave in, but only if I did it with him, so I went to his house, drank three beers with Embry and fell asleep in the middle of his bed."

Nessie laughed, the sound spiraling up through the crash of the waves against the base of the cliffs, the seagulls' cries overhead. "We are way too much alike. Jake walked in on me right before we moved in together, with some guy doing body shots off my stomach. Not exactly my finest moment."

I laughed at that too, I couldn't help it. Her laughter was literally contagious.

And then, somehow, I was laughing so hard I was almost crying, at the stupidity of the whole situation.

It looked like she didn't even feel the rocks underfoot as she walked across the sand to sit next to me on my rock, legs folding perfectly underneath her. Her hand rubbed my back, feeling almost familiar in its abnormal heat. My muscles relaxed in spite of myself; I'd anticipated ice.

It didn't take long for me to suppress the tears. Sharing emotions was a little like talking to strangers, at least for me. Besides, around the rest of the pack, I always felt like the weepy teenager. Really, my life was the next thing to perfect. So maybe it felt like something was missing, maybe I hadn't watched a sappy romantic chick flick in years, maybe there were moments when I thought I saw something I didn't. Maybe I didn't look like Nessie Cullen.

That was still no reason to cry.

She didn't seem impatient, or uncomfortable, the way Quil sometimes did, full of restless energy and worry in a way that made me want to cry harder. She just sat there and rubbed my back.

When I'd wiped the last of the moisture from my eyes, she leaned away again, giving me a little bit of space. "Wanna talk about it?"

Why did I have the feeling she'd done this before?

I shook my head, my mouth already shaping agreement. "It's just…" The words wouldn't come, as my voice trailed off into empty air.

The look in her eyes was sympathy, not the pity I'd feared. "Complicated?"

I nodded. "I don't know why I'm even crying."

She hesitated for a second. "Can I show you something? Like I showed you Alaska earlier…my way of showing, I guess."

I nodded again, more curious than worried.

Her fingers on my chin tilted my face up to hers and Quil's face filled my mind, unbidden. I would know his features anywhere. They looked different somehow, less familiar. But the expression on his face was burned into my memory.

I'd seen it once or twice throughout the years, when he thought I wasn't looking. Glancing over my shoulder to see if he was coming, tilting my gaze up to see if he was asleep yet. It was the kind of face you can't ever forget. His face never looked like that, except when he was looking at me. It was the kind of look every girl dreams about, like he was gazing at his whole world in those stolen seconds.

Or maybe that's just what I wanted it to be.

"So?" I looked up into a pair of brown eyes that were more caring than I had a right to expect them to be.

"So, I've been there." She shook her head, closing her eyes and leaning her head back to soak in the scant sunlight. With a sigh, she started talking again. "Jake started being really stupid around the time I started looking sixteen. I mean leaving the room when I was in a bathing suit, not touching me except when I started it…always wearing a shirt."

Her crooked smile was literally contagious, coaxing the beginnings of amusement onto my face.

"All I knew was that my best friend was being weird and I got really mad at him. I made him promise to tell me what was going on after begging my dad and Uncle Jazz. When he finally told me about the imprint, he expected me to freak out. Really, once I found out that it really was just his problem, I stopped being worried. Anything was better than losing my best friend.

Yeah, I had to practically beg him for my first kiss, and anything more than a peck on the lips was out of the question for ages. He was a real idiot about it. But he's still my best friend in the whole world. Except now…"

There was no mistaking the wink she gave me. I couldn't help blushing again, which just made her laugh. It was nice laughing though.

"Quil's been weird since I turned fifteen." I studied my cuticles and broken nails. "It started off slow…then everyone just expected us to be dating and we did when I was sixteen…but it went badly and it's just been…" Yet again, I was at a loss for words to describe the delicate balance we had woven among all the things I wouldn't say.

Saying I had fallen in love my best friend didn't even begin to describe it.

"He tries not to let me see it, but I know him too well." My hands ran through my hair almost angrily.

Nessie put a hand on my shoulder. "Somehow, I have a feeling it'll work out."

I looked down at my hands. "What if it doesn't?"

She sighed, shaking her head in sympathetic amusement. "He looks are you like you're his whole freaking world. You can't mess this up."

Easy enough for her to say. She wasn't human, handicapped by acne or bad breath or clothes that just wouldn't fit right.

"How do you know?" My voice was small. I didn't even want to know the answer to the question but I needed the reassurance all the same.

"Claire." Nessie shifted until I was looking squarely into her brown eyes. "I will bet you anything that Jake and Quil are talking about you right now."

"And you." How could they not be?

She rolled her eyes. "Jake's probably whining about the way I never do the dishes. Quil is probably moaning about how badly he wishes you too weren't just friends."

"We're not just anything." Moving to his defense wasn't even conscious. It was just what I did. "We're happy. I'm happy."

"But there's more than friendship here."

I didn't bother arguing with her. I wanted it to be true too badly.

"We should start heading back," I said instead.

She shrugged and stood, reaching down to help pull me to my feet. "It'll be okay," she promised.

I wanted to believe her.

* * *

Nessie and Jake became common fixtures around Aunt Em's. For the moment, they'd moved in with Quil and Embry found himself kicked out to live with the flavor of the month. At least his romantic life was uncomplicated.

Mine was no simpler now than it had been when I'd first met Nessie. The four of us went to the movies in Port Angeles, dinner in Forks, watched movies until six in the morning on the floor of Quil's living room. Despite what should have felt like a double date, Nessie and Jake were the only ones touching most of the time.

Not that they didn't do enough touching for all of us.

About three weeks after they'd moved in, Quil called me at three in the morning.

It was slightly pathetic that I not only answered the phone, but then proceeded to throw on boots and go down to meet him. At least I could argue he was a reliable heat source.

I was tired enough that I didn't say anything after slipping out the front door, just walked through the snow, arms reaching out for him. The heat of his body almost sent me back to sleep again and it was good timing on his part to lift me in his arms. He carried me like I weighed nothing until we were in the far back corner of our property, where the yard met the woods. It was our spot. Always had been.

I drowsily curled closer into his body, blinking lazily through the dark at his face, features smudged by shadow.

"I can't sleep." He looked tired. My fingers reached up to trace the circles under his eyes. "Nessie and Jake…"

I laughed. I was almost used to them by now. "Poor single Quil."

I didn't realize until the words had left my mouth, but apparently that was the worst thing I could have said. Neither one of us said anything. It wasn't comfortable or easy. This was a heavy, loaded silence, charged with a hundred things I hadn't told him.

The only thing I could think about was how close our faces were.

"Claire?"

I had only seen Quil afraid twice. Once, when I was seven and almost dove off the cliffs after Embry. The second when I told him I was going to a party at my high school, thrown by the football team.

This was the third time.

"Yeah?"

Exhaustion was going straight to my head, making me drowsy and dizzy and thoughtless. Everything was fogged, moving in half-time.

"I have no right to ask this."

The tension in the air increased ten-fold. This was either the best dream I had ever had or something from my worst nightmares and I had no idea which way the pendulum would swing.

"And I don't know how to say this."

Quil always knew just what to say, when I scraped my knee, when some boy was pushing me on the playground, when a teacher was giving me a hard time, when I asked to be alone just because I didn't know what to say.

"But I've been thinking, a lot, and talking to Jake and Nessie."

There was a horrible moment of the most anticipatory tension I have ever felt in my life. He had to keep talking. I didn't want him to say anything else. But by this point, we were so far off the comfortable and the conventional I didn't even know how to pull us back. If, that is, I had even wanted to.

"I love you, Claire. I always have. But I…fell…in love. With you. And I'm sorry, but I can't pretend I don't anymore. I'm not asking you anything. I'm not expecting anything. But I…"

And then I kissed him. Me, shy, quiet Claire who had never asked a boy out or initiated a kiss or a date or a night spent watching movies. I kissed Quil.

It was the best decision I have ever made in my entire life.

There were no words. Words would have ruined it anyway. My mind was too taken up with the sensation of his hands, reaching up to hold my face like it was something fragile and breakable, his lips softly pressing against mine.

It was the quintessential first kiss except infinitely more right and amazing and incredible.

At least it was until the kiss started turning salty. He pulled back and then we were just Quil and Claire, standing in our spot, my arms wrapped around his neck.

I shouldn't have started laughing but I was so relieved I couldn't help it. My head buried itself in the curve where his neck ran into his shoulder. I could taste his skin through my laughter and it tasted familiar and new and so amazingly right, like my entire world had figured itself out for the first time.

"We are so stupid."

Before the words were out of my mouth, distorted by laughter, I realized how wrongly he might hear them. But by the time I had thought to qualify what I had said, hot hands on my shoulders were pulling me away to look up into his dark eyes.

He thought I didn't want this.

He was so dense.

"It took us so long to figure this out, idiot." I smiled up at him, trying for once to put everything that had my heart racing and my stomach twisting on itself into my face. "God I knew I was in love with you since freshman year."

He buried his face in my hair, ignoring the fact that I hadn't washed it since that morning and it probably smelled like the Febreeze my sister had been spraying all over our house. "I've known forever."

The sensation of his lips moving against my hair was worth every minute of waiting.

And I was under no illusion that it was going to be easy and under no false impressions that the rest of the community would suck it up and leave us alone. My parents were going to be impossible.

But I didn't care. All was right in my world.

From the look in his eyes when I looked up, the look I'd hoarded my glimpses of, his world wasn't too bad either.

* * *

Author's Note: Sooo…..


End file.
